A Tea Addict's Journal

Entries categorized as ‘Teas’

Portion sizing

May 8, 2011 · 7 Comments

Tea comes in many different sizes — you can buy them in bag form, in boxes, in tins, and compressed.  There are the easy to distinguish sizes that are pretty common for everything we buy — 100g, 50g, 3oz, 4 liang, a jin.  Then there are the ones that are less common, and is sometimes more troublesome when dealing with them – gram incrementals, 7g packs, 25g samples.  None, however, have ever come in this format before

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Yup — a minibing of extremely mini proportions.  These are 6g cakes of a certain tea whose producer I bought from through Taobao.  When I saw them thrown into my Taobao order, I was positively amused.  After all, it’s actually a pretty good idea, but one that has never occurred to me (and as far as I can tell, anyone else).  Usually, when you buy samples, the vendor chips a little block off the cake and send it to you.  Not here, no.  These vendors know you want a sample, and so they pre-pressed them into sample sizes.  They are so prepared, in fact, they even printed mini wrappers, with the date of production, 2009 March, stamped on the back.  Talk about thinking ahead.

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I think these cakes are definitely a nice idea in terms of getting your tea out and giving them some attention.  At the same time though, they are slightly annoying.  I generally don’t like pre-determined portion sizes when it comes to tea.  The reason is that the amount of leaves used in any particular session has a huge influence on how you perceive the tea, and you have no idea how much tea leaves you need until you know what vessel you’re using to brew it.  Brewing tea in a 300ml pot is very different from brewing it in a 60ml gaiwan, but both are equally appropriate for somebody out there who considers drinking from such a brewing vessel a proper tea session.

This mini-minicake, for example, is really too small for my taste.  I’d like a little more tea than 6g, but at the same time, not quite as much as 12g, for my usual young puerh pot.  This is where the trouble is – if I brew apart the second cake I have, I will be left with a completely useless sample of 2-3g of tea.  If I don’t, then I will drink an underpowered tea.  I could find a smaller brewing vessel, but I don’t really want to use a gaiwan.  I also happen to think that brewing too little tea in too small a vessel is not always going to produce good results.  I ended up opting for just one cake, and saving the next for something else (or just to keep around for novelty value).  The tea is pleasant, but a bit bland in the cup, mostly because it is not as concentrated as I like it.

This is why I hate seeing tieguanyin or other oolongs packed into little individual packets.  While they are quite convenient to carry around, they are a pain.  I don’t like 7g for my oolongs — it’s always too little, but two packs is also almost always too much.  There’s really no happy medium, and nobody seems to make any packets other than the standard 7g ones.  Why do it?

I think there are two reasons these are done.  One is the abovementioned convenience.  The other is really something to do with the conception that freshness is at stake.  I don’t think I really buy that — unless you plan on leaving your 100g bag of tieguanyin around for years, freshness is really not that big of an issue.  Convenience, on the other hand, is, and I find myself increasingly disliking the small packets of teas despite their sometimes convenient nature.

Sample size is another issue.  25g is roughly two sittings for me, although depending on the mood, the tea, and the setting, that may vary considerably.  Of course, there’s an amount at which it no longer makes any sense to call it a sample.  Leftover bits from samples is basically a fact of life — there’s no way to avoid it, really, no matter the amount given.  Like division that has a remainder, it is what it is, and nothing can be done about it to get rid of the remainder, short of mixing them together to brew.   Some vendors, however, have odd sizes — 15g, for example, or even 10g.  I find those to be utterly useless, and 10g is sometimes not enough for even one sitting, depending on the tea (and the quality of the tea in question — really ground up leaves counting towards 10g is not really 10g of tea at all).  At the same time though, buying by the gram is a little odd, and not something I’m used to or prefer.  Set sizes, like 100g or 3oz, still works best for me.

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Smoke gets in your tea

May 3, 2011 · 3 Comments

Smokiness is a common thing in younger puerh, especially teas that were made a few years ago or earlier.  In recent years, I’ve found that processing has generally been done more carefully to avoid smoke — for good reason, because intense smokiness tends to drive down the price of the tea.

Smoke is a by-product of the processing of puerh, generally attributed to older frying techniques with pans and not-so-careful management of smoke in the fire, etc.  I remember back in the day, friends with far more experience would tell me that the older teas that are now worth thousands, such as Yellow Label, were intensely smokey when new, in addition to being sour, bitter, and generally quite nasty.  Since those turned out well (partly thanks to traditional storage, I believe) smoke was sometimes seen as a good thing by these friends, because it’s another additional character that adds substance for the tea to change over time.  With the advent of dry storage, however, I’m not sure if that mantra holds true anymore.

I had a mix of two teas today, because they were samples running too low for an individual sitting.  The two teas are a 2006 Yongde Organic from YSLLC, and a 2002 CNNP Bingdao from Puerhshop (no longer available).  I remember trying them a long time ago, but I don’t remember much about them.  I’m pretty sure neither were earth shatteringly good.  One, though, was clearly quite smokey, because it still is as I drank it today.  Both teas I’ve had for a few years now, sitting in small plastic bags in my samples box.  As airing-out goes, these samples are pretty aired out.  Yet, when I brewed it, the smoke persists.  It’s not as strong as it must have been, once upon a time, but it is still there, very prominent, obvious, and distracting.

Smoke eventually goes away, in the right kind of environment, but until it does, the tea is rarely enjoyable.  Since only about 1/2 of the sample I drank today contained smokey tea (I’m pretty sure only one was smokey, not both) it is important to note how they do, in fact, linger for years.  One tea is from 06, the other 02, so five years in North American storage did very little to the smoke.  It is a good reminder of how this works.

The tea is otherwise quite good — and because they have been blended as two components, I think the mouthfeel is quite full and luscious.  The tea has strength, and given some more years, will probably turn out to be quite decent.  On the downside, they are still quite young tasting, and are only beginning to show some age.  Dry stored teas require a lot of patience, and even then, the right environment.  Only engage in it if you’re ready and willing to enter a long term relationship with the cakes you buy.

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Three oolongs in comparison

April 28, 2011 · 17 Comments

I felt inspired to do a comparative tasting today, something which I haven’t done for quite some time.  This past March when I went back to Hong Kong I renewed my interest in tieguanyin, which for the past few years have been in the doghouse, so to speak, because most of the stuff you can buy in the US or in mainland China are so unspeakably bad.  They are, generally speaking, of the “nuclear green” variety where they are almost greener than green teas.  While some people like the fragrance of those teas, I personally find them awful.  Give me any traditional style tieguanyin anyday.

Having gone to a few stores that sold such things in Hong Kong this past break, including a great experience with a relatively cheap tieguanyin at the incredible Tim’s Kitchen (yes, restaurant tea can be good!) I was quite inspired.  So, I bought a bunch of things, and started trying some that I have leftover at home in comparison.  Today’s is one such tasting.

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The identity of the teas are not terribly important.  The one on the left is a highly roasted, slightly aged (my own storage) oolong that I bought a few years ago.  It’s electric roasted.  The one in the middle is a recent purchase on this past trip, with the vendor roasting using charcoal roast and blending the end product.  The one on the right is what I think of as a typical green tieguanyin these days, still not as green as can be, but pretty green nonetheless.  I tend not to drink such things these days.

Closeups of each of the three:

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You can see the blending in the middle tea – various colours are present in the dry leaves.  I brewed them in competition cups for five minutes each, and this is the result

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Competition style really brings out all kinds of stuff you don’t necessarily notice if you were brewing them normally.  The middle tea ended up being the darkest, and the nose has a distinct charcoal smell that the other two don’t have.  The right one is obviously the most immediately fragrant, with a strong vanilla note.  The left one is in some ways the most subdued, but has a nice roasted fragrance.

In the mouth though is where they really differ.  I think with competition style, especially if you drink one right after the other, it is sometimes difficult to tell which one is giving you the strong, everlasting aftertaste, because you are drinking them in such quick succession.  However, it is possible to distinguish notes and especially body and mouthfeel very easily with this method.  Drinking it this way, it is obvious that the middle cup is in some ways the fullest — it has the most full bodied brew among the three.  It also has flaws, specifically it has a harsh and sour note, the harshness from the charcoal roast, the sourness from probably some improper storage.  The tea on the left is the most pleasant to drink for me, probably because it’s been aged slightly.  It has the beginning of an aged taste to it, and will develop it further if I were to leave it alone.  However, it is also in some ways the most boring, because the tea is more or less one-note, and is a bit hollow in the mouth.  The one on the right is clearly a different beast, and caters to an entirely different market.

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The wet leaves also yield some stories.  You can see the mixed nature of the tea for the middle one, as there are leaves of varying shades and stiffness, whereas the other two are more uniform in their appearance.  The leaves on the left are a bit thin in comparison to the other two, perhaps accounting for some of the thinness that I’m noticing in the cup.

It is difficult to find teas like the two left ones in the US, at least, and in China, even.  In a big tea market in a major city, you may find one or two outfits that have some stuff that might be somewhat roasted, but by and large, if you walk into a tieguanyin store you’re going to find various shades of nuclear green.  The reason for this is simple.  It’s both easier and cheaper to make really green tieguanyin — less work, less processing, and they sell for more in China, where the taste is predominantly for lighter tieguanyins.  The same, I think, can be said of the US, and it is usually only serious teaheads who drink the roasted ones, which make them a difficult thing to sell.  In places in Southern China like Guangdong province, the tradition of drinking roasted tea is a bit deeper, so you will find more of these types of tea there, but even then you have to look for them, because otherwise it is very easy to end up with inferior roasted teas.

I like the tea in the middle when I drink it normally — the sourness is quite manageable, as evidenced by my session with friends this past weekend.  This is the other thing about competition brewing — you want to start with a tea that is both strong and has a good body/mouthfeel.  Particular flavours that may be unpleasant are entirely manageable through brewing techniques, but it’s easier for skills to manage bad traits than to concoct a drink out of a bland and boring tea.  Likewise, it makes me wonder about the usefulness of drinking single estate teas for any genre — blending requires skills and is an art, and I’m not sure if there are really that many people now who can do it right.  I turned down the offer to buy some unblended tieguanyin from the same shop, I should go back next time to do that for comparison.

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My cat’s choice

April 18, 2011 · 6 Comments

For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, I have two cats who have been with me for almost ten years now.  Normally, they don’t care much for tea.  In fact, they ignore me when I brew tea.  Sometimes the male cat, Sunny, will come by and sniff, but no more.  He is, by and large, not interested in such things.  Smokey, the female one, generally avoids me when I make tea.  Napping is much more interesting.

Recently though, Smokey has shown extreme interest in one particular cake of tea I have sitting around.  This never happens, but the other day, she was positively pawing it and sniffing it, something which has never, ever happened before with any other tea.  I figured I need to give this tea a try again, since she’s generally quite selective in her food choices.

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The tea in question is one I sent recently to BBB for some tasting.  It’s a Bulang I picked up over Taobao for a not-very-cheap price.  The tea was shown without any identifier on Taobao — just a generic Bulang claim, pictures of the leaves, and that’s it.  Turns out it actually has a real wrapper

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The tea is pretty good looking, but nothing too special.  With dry leaves, especially in pressed form, there is only so much you can tell from the looks.  At the end of the day, it’s all about the liquor.

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My tea looks way darker than BBB’s for two reasons — lighting, and because I use a much deeper cup.  I think this tea is one of very few in recent years that I’ve tried that fit my criteria for a good, young puerh — one that excites the tongue, turns sweet very quickly, has qi, and does not give me hints of odd processing or green tea processing.  The last point is particularly important, as many teas these days are made in such a way as to yield immediate, bean like pleasure, but will, over time, turn to a bitter mess.  Nine out of ten samples of new teas have some version of that.  This is one of the other 10%.

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I might actually pick some more of this up, eventually, but it’s just expensive enough for me to think twice about it.

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Mingcong aged oolong

April 9, 2011 · 8 Comments

A very generous friend, S, from Malaysia sent me a bunch of teas recently, and among the samples (and a full cake too) is this, a little gem from the past.  I’m not entirely sure how old this is, but from the packaging it looks to be at least 20 years or more.  It’s a small packet of Wuyi tea.

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The name on the front is Mingcong (famous bush) while on the back it just says, very helpfully, China oolong tea.  The bag is very stained from the years of rest it’s taken.  When I opened it up, I can clearly smell the aged-ness of the tea — slightly sour, with that distinctive aged oolong fragrance that can’t be faked.

The dry leaves are quite broken.  The tea was well roasted when it came out.

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From the taste of the tea, it seems like it’s some sort of shuixian.  The initial two infusions are slightly sour, but not enough to make it unpleasant.  The sourness, as it should, goes away, and a nice, deep aged Wuyi taste lingers.  This is pretty decent tea.  Just judging by the looks, it looks like some dark cooked puerh.

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Stuff like this are always a treat, as they are mellow and easy to drink.  I’m a big fan of good aged oolong for a reason; they are tasty and don’t cost nearly as much as aged puerh does these days.  They also last quite a while, if the tea is good.  I wonder how much this tea was.

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The leaves are dark, but still flexible.  Good tea — thanks S!

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Traditionally stored 2006 Haiwan Lao Tongzhi

April 1, 2011 · 13 Comments

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I don’t really drink stuff like this very often, but since this tea is among those that I think some of us have had, back when it was fresh off the press, I bought one for fun this time in Hong Kong to try it out.  The reason I got it is not because this tea is amazing, rare, or anything — far from it.  Rather, it’s because it’s been traditionally stored.  People often wonder what this process does, exactly, to a tea.  Here’s a good example of it.

I still remember seeing this tea in Beijing when I was living there, and it sold for about $3 USD.  This time, I paid close to $25 to buy it, so it felt pricey.  Then again, buying tea in Hong Kong is never going to be that cheap, but if you go troll the tea markets in China, I’m sure you can still find dry stored versions of this cake selling for probably $10.

Haiwan tea factory was founded and headed by Zou Bingliang, who used to be the head of the Menghai factory, and is credited with having co-invented the process to make cooked puerh.  Like a lot of others who were in leadership position at Menghai, Zou struck out on his own in the late 90s and early 2000s, and I think among the slew of factories that started around that time by Menghai alum (Guoyan, 6FTM, Haiwan, etc) his outfit is probably one of the better and more successful one.  Lao Tongzhi is pretty much the base cake for the factory — the lowest tier mass market tea.  I remember trying the very young version of this tea, and it tasted like any big factory, newly pressed cake — bitter, rough, but powerful in the hard hitting sort of way.  The tea was not something you’d particularly enjoy drinking, but hope it will get better with time.  An interesting thing to note about this tea is that it says “nongxiang xing” on the left — intense flavour type, literally.  I have, however, never seen any other types of LTZ cakes, so I think this is all just silly marketing speak.

Since this cake is traditionally stored though, it’s not your run of the mill 2006 vintage young puerh.  Right away, the smell is obvious when you open the wrapper.  The cake also looks visibly darker.

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There’s a reason puerh is a heicha (black tea).

There’s some white frosting on the cake, although nothing too serious.  It’s not white all over, and once I crack it open, the interior is quite ok.  Traditional storage can be overdone — as you sometimes see cakes that literally are covered in white hair.  This is medium.

The tea looks dark too, when you brew it.

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I believer it’s very important to educate yourself with stuff like this to get a sense of how a 5 years old, traditionally stored tea tastes like.  If you don’t know what it’s like, then it is very easy for someone to come by and tell you that the tea is actually 15 years old, and you would not be able to tell the difference.  In the cup, the tea is still a little sharp – the storage taste is quite present, and needs time to fade.  The underlying bitterness still exists, although having aired it out for a week now since I got back, the tea is already somewhat sweeter.  There’s decent body, nice aromatics that range from what Toki would call granny powder to dried leaves.  Good, solid traditionally stored pu that needs some time to age.  If I were to buy more of this, I’d just leave it around for a few years, and I think the tea will then progress to something quite nice.  It is also necessary — after all, part of the process of storing a tea traditionally is to tuicang (退倉) process, to both reduce the immediate smell of the storage as well as further aging the cake.  Stuff that just came out of the basement is not meant for consumption.

The wet leaves are various shades of green and brown, a typical look for this sort of storage condition.  Note how none of the leaves are black or stiff — they should retain flexibility, if they are well stored.

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All in all — a pretty enjoyable drink, I think.  More importantly, this tea has gone from pretty undrinkable to pretty drinkable within a span of five years.  I’m pretty sure that if you pick up a 2006 LTZ from Kunming, it’s still going to be fairly nasty.

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Tea with friends

March 13, 2011 · 6 Comments

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It seems almost frivolous to talk about tea when Japan has suffered one of the biggest earthquake in recorded history.  I was on my way from LAX to Hong Kong while it happened, and when it struck I think I just got in the air, eventually flying through Tohoku, completely unaware that 35,000 ft below me was death and destruction on a scale that is hardly imaginable.

Traveling with me was some teaware.  I have virtually nothing here in Hong Kong to make tea with, and so I transported a few things so that it will be possible for me to host a few friends for some tea.  It is always difficult to devise a course of teas for people who have varying levels of experience.  In the group of five (not counting me) was one MadameN, a serious tea friend, and three relative novices.  Left to our own devices, the serious tea friend and I will probably drink a parade of young and old puerh.  MadameN normally humours my habit, to a reasonable limit.  Then you have the novices, who may or may not react well to any or all of the teas, and it’s always a bit of a crapshoot because of that uncertainty.  I settled on a menu of a green tieguanyin, a slightly aged baozhong, traditionally stored Guangyungong bits, and in the end, an impromptu Golden Needle White Lotus, courtesy of said tea friend.

It is always fun to drink tea with people you’ve never done so before, especially if they’re encountering something for the first time, or have very little experience with what they’re drinking, because all of a sudden you hear all sorts of new perspective on the drink that you’re so familiar with, and end up learning more about it in the process.  The green tieguanyin is the most familiar to all, I believe, and goes over as well as one would expect such things to do.  The aged baozhong received mixed reviews, not least because the tea itself is odd — aged, but not too much so, and the liquor was a nice reddish colour.  It is slightly sour, with that vaguely chemical smell that sometimes accompanies aged oolongs.  It was likened to paint thinners as well as meicai (preserved Chinese vegetables), which is quite apt, I think.

The Guangyungong bits elicited some interesting comments, ranging from a certain hollowness, to varying responses on the bitter/sweet balance in the tea, and the earthiness of the brew.  Some were very attuned to the aftertaste that both the baozhong and the GYG present, while others were less aware of their existence.  What I always find most interesting though is that what tea drinkers see as good tea is often not necessarily considered good by others.  Sometimes there’s a lot of navel gazing when tea drinkers talk to each other about teas, and forget that for most people, none of the teas we drink are actually good (i.e. taste good, in a juicy, flavourful way), but perhaps merely interesting.  The Golden Needle White Lotus, for example, does well up front, but when stressed to a slightly longer (1.5 minutes) steep alongside the GYG, it’s obvious that the GYG is sweeter and better.

What’s most important though is that everyone had, I think, a good time.  Tea is best drunk with friends, and if I could, I would do this every day.

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The later, the better

March 8, 2011 · 3 Comments

Sometimes some teas behave oddly, or rather, they behave in unexpected ways.  I had two “white paper” puerhs in a row, both of which are from no-name makers, purchased off taobao and claiming to be “Yiwu” of the 05/06 vintage.  One of them looks like this
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Nothing too fancy, clearly, even though the seller claims it’s from Mahei and used old tree leaves.  Both teas share a similar characteristic – they are both slightly sour, not very pleasant, but get better, not worse, as I continue to brew them.  The first is, I think, the better tea, with a stronger taste and better longevity, but it also has more off flavours in the initial infusions — sourness, mostly, but also some odd flavours.  The second one is much cheaper — by a factor of 7, in fact, and a little weaker, but still quite good, as long as I keep brewing.  The initial infusions, once again, disappoint.  Both brew a similar looking cup.

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It’s things like these that throw me off.  I can never quite tell whether teas like these are really worth buying more of.  On the one hand you have things like the Yisheng, which you know, right away, that they’re made of quality material and will do well.  Then you have the clear losers that are just terrible in one fashion or another, and can be written off almost immediately.  Then you have stuff like this — pleasant, decent, but having enough negatives to make you wonder if they’re any good at all.  The fact that they have some legs seem to suggest that they’re not all bad, but it’s also hard for me to say that they’re indeed all good.  Price often becomes the primary deciding factor — I may not buy the first one, but might buy some of the second, simply because it’s dirt cheap.  Shipping would cost more.

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Finding winners

February 19, 2011 · 6 Comments

I think one part of any hobby that requires collecting is the fun in finding winners.  Some hobbies, like stamp collecting, have what I think of as high transparency.  Everyone already know what’s out there, and generally speaking, people have a fairly good idea of the rarities that may exist and how much they would go for.  Once in a while there’s a surprise, but those are few and far between, and generally require some luck to land on.  Then there are things like puerh drinking, which also has a collecting component to it.  Here, I think the transparency is both high and low — high for a small constellation of “famous” cakes which everyone knows about and is sought after, not always for the right reasons.  Then there’s the rest of the teas out there, largely unnoticed, flying under the radar.  Some can be very good, and in some cases even better than some of the more famous productions, but very often, they are duds and deserve to remain in the background.  The joy of finding a hidden gem, however, is great.

Hobbes at Half Dipper has just talked about two cakes that I recently got samples for from Yunnan Sourcing — the purple and red Yisheng from 2005.  These are sister cakes to the red Yisheng that I bought in Beijing back in 2007, and which Hobbes has diligently reviewed after he purchased some himself.  I remember trying the one I bought with the one that YSLLC currently offers, and decided on the one that I eventually bought because I thought it slightly better.  I don’t remember seeing the purple there, or if I did, it was more expensive and thus ruled out of consideration.

I’ve seen the cakes surface on Taobao since then, but never really found reason to try them again, especially since it involves buying a whole cake.  With YSLLC offering samples though, I decided to take the plunge.

Yesterday I had the red, since I know it better.  As soon as I opened the sample bag, I could smell the tea.

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Using my trusty young puerh pot, it brews dark

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The tea was, according to Scott, aged in Xishuangbanna, and it shows.  Kunming teas don’t age like this, and one of the reasons I decided to try the tea at all was because of this storage claim.  In my experience, teas stored in Xishuangbanna in general are quite good.  They mellow much faster without the dryness that Kunming has, which I find to be draining on a tea.  Drinking this red Yisheng, I am reminded of my own cakes — and wonder how they’re aging in Hong Kong.  Unfortunately, I have no basis for comparison, but this tea is very nice, showing signs of age as well as a solid Yiwu taste and mouthfeel, with good qi and longevity.  I like this.

The red is, according to Scott, a fall tea, while the purple was picked in the spring.  So it’s only natural that I try that today as a comparison.  Right away, you can tell that the leaves are smaller and more buds are present.

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The colour of the liquor is largely similar, with perhaps a hint darker than the red.

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The true test, of course, is in the way it goes down, and here the extra rainy season it endured is obvious — the tea tastes more aged.  It also has more punch, being a spring tea, and it lasts forever.  Three kettles of water later, it still yields a strong cup.  For the purposes of record keeping, I took the leaves out for some pictures

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With the purple on the left and red on the right.  Then, having taken said pictures, the purple leaves are now back in a mug for some grandpa style drinking.  Interestingly enough, drinking it this way yields a slightly smokey note that was not present in the normal brewing.

Both of these teas are what I would consider great young puerh that are starting to show some age, while having enough “stuff” to go on aging without worries about deterioration, which is more than I can say about many other cakes of this vintage.  The purple is punchier, while the red is mellower, which some might like.  I remember the great feeling of having found a “winner” in the spring of 07 when I bought the Yisheng in Beijing, back when Douji was a relatively obscure brand and nobody has heard of Yisheng before.  Drinking these now, I have the same feeling, and wonder why I didn’t try the purple one first.  I wish I have my own cake here to compare, but it’s probably better that they are in Hong Kong, safely tucked away from my evil clutches.  Taobao’s offering are similarly priced, and if you factor in proxy costs and other sundry charges, YSLLC is as good as any.  Of course, your mileage may vary, but I think this tea deserves at least a hearing.

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Aged Margaret’s Hope Darjeeling

February 11, 2011 · 7 Comments

A few years ago, Mr. Rajiv Lochan of Lochan Tea sent me a few really big bags of samples.  I’ve had some in the intervening years, but never quite finished any of them despite my best attempt, mostly because I don’t drink black tea very often.   Since I’m on the road today, I pulled out the bag labeled Margaret’s Hope Black Tea, and had it grandpa style.  The tea, I must say, has aged very gracefully in the four years that it’s been under my possession.  I’ve always known that blacks often taste fuller with age, at least in the first year or two, but this tea, drunk in this way, was just really, really nice.  Long gone are the aggressive notes that you get with Darjeeling — that bitter bite that comes with the territory of drinking Darjeelings grandpa style is not to be found.  Instead, a very welcoming sweetness pervades the tea, coats the mouth, and slides down the throat.  The sweetness is not too different from the type of taste you get from a good, somewhat (but not very) aged puerh — a 5-7 years tea that’s turning the corner.  You can still taste the typical Darjeeling scent underneath, but this is much better than, say, a young 2nd flush.

This makes me wonder if I should stock up on some Darjeelings and just let them age.  Might not be a bad idea, actually.

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